Palm Lowers Price on m515

The lack of the m505's backlit Grafitti area and a slightly longer-life battery (I like to have the brightness cranked up). Otherwise, it's a top-notch unit in all regards. It's probably the most elegant handheld ever made (I never liked the V's black buttons) and for many, many folks, that's all that matters.

But those are superficial, Main reasons are:
Because Palm take care of its customers WAY better than Sony.
Problem with Palm, the send you a replacement before you send yours in.
Sony will keep you from your device for a couple of weeks, while you wait for a repair, no "loaner" PDA.

When you have real work to get done, service is far more important than resolution. (Oh and you can see a few more cells in quicksheet on a Sony. big deal.)

Just to let you know I have a PalmV and a Sony 760.
I like my Sony, Love the screen, I will get the new NR not the Tungsten.
But I fully understand why others chose Palm.

So they don't have to deal with clutter and bloatware.

Yes, the hardware is great, so why would anyone settle for less hardware?

The reason is because there are people who, no matter what it runs on or how cheap it is, do NOT want Windows on their handheld.

Microsoft can't grasp this concept. It is utterly unthinkable that any human being would prefer anything else. Six months was supposed to be the "takeover handheld universe" timeframe. What year is it now?

I appreciate the hardware advances, even if PPC profit margins are cut to the teeth to get more people to buy them. However, you can't force people to buy what they don't want, and a lot of people don't want PPC because of the OS and software. The hardware is not the issue.

Yeah, PocketPCs are just wonderful, aren't they? My e740 was so wonderful that a week after I bought it I exchanged it for a Treo 90. I don't want another Windows machine, I want a PDA that does exactly what it was intended to do. If I wanted a mini game machine, I'd buy a Gameboy Advance.

By then we should see more then built-in 16mb and won't be hit with the early adopter tax, so I new that if you are buying on OS4.1 handheld, get one that is usable and pleasing to the eye over one that IMO, is ugly (T665) or chunky (SJ30). The peripherals are plentiful as well, as I got a keyboard and Kensington hard case also.

By the way, I am a longtime Sony fan. Only previous handheld was S320 and reliability was unbeatable... Hopefully my m515 is the same.

hmmmmmm. i like palm, but: i have a freind who bouaht an m505 with the crappy, dim screen. 1 week later the m515 came out. he exchanged the m505 and got the m515 and the screen was indeed bright and more evenly lit, however, 2 weeks later he accidently dropped it into his pool . The unit he got after that had horrible shadowing on the edges of the screen (looked as bad as m505). 3 units later (ALL has the same kind of problems, inlucing one with dead pixels) he gave up. Thats quality? I am blown away by how lame the QA is on these devices. We have 320x480 screens out there, and Palm can't make 2 units (w/screens of 160x160) the same. Each one was crappy in a slightly different way. Unbeleivable disapointment.

My decision was between the 515 and the Sony T-615, and for me, the button design, UC, and battery life issues were the deciding factors. The 515 isn't flashy, just rock solid at what it does, and good-looking to boot.

My question is why anyone would want to buy that finger-pinching Tungsten T thing? Sure, the guts sound nice, but the design is just impractical and gimmicky. Palm should have stuck with a classier, one-piece look and made the innovations where they count most (virtual grafitti, jog dial, etc.)

Better, by about 15% even though the brightness is about twice of the 505. On high, it will be less than the 505. I use the high setting only once in a while, like in some board rooms, offices, and stores that have a strange effect on screen brightness. I went through six 505's, so I had plenty to compare with...

"Is the Grafitti area visible/usable in total darkness (like, in bed) with the brightness cranked up all the way? Does it produce enough ambient light?"

It's usable, but does not stand out like the 505. Of course, there IS no other handheld with a backlit hard grafitti area.

"Finally, does anyone here regularly overclock their m515? I like to run my games and Kinoma a tad faster than default"

I have FastCPU which I bought mostly for TealMovie. Kinoma Player runs fine without FastCPU. Sometimes I'll kick it up to 40 or 50Mhz just for kicks, but keep it at the usual 33Mhz because everything is pretty much instant anyways. That is, unless I'm working on a laptop-choking spreadsheet or my relational database is way past due on it's archive appointment. Slight increase in battery drain at 38Mhz, more noticable battery drain above 40Mhz.

I personally couldn't go back to that crappy beep beep that the Palms offer, after having Polyphonic sound on a T665.

Between having built in MP3, Hi Res, MUCH better alarm sounds, and jog wheel, I just can't understand ANYONE choosing the M5x5's over a Sony.

Crummy stylus? Crummy up/down buttons? Yeah... but what you get in exchange far outweights (for me, anyway) what you give up in a "nice stylus/buttons"!

Don't worry, your hands will get bigger when you grow up. Hope your spelling also improves.

Try 4x as many, if you keep the scale 1x1 for the cells

I carry the Palm (starting with the V) in a shirt or suit pocket, daily, all day long. And dispite what some think, "almost" the size of a V/5x5 just doesn't cut it.

And I'm not a "Techno-Idiot", and I *don't* need an MP3 player or camera to do business. I do need a solid PDA, and it doesn't have to play games. (I also don't need a cellphone that plays games or has 1,000 ring tones.)

Now I'm sure there are those that need such features and just *must* have a 320x320 screen and a 225MHz processor, yadda yadda. That's fine. Get what you want, or what you need.

But there is absolutely no reason for *me* to get something I *don't* want because some pre-pubescent pinheads (Slayer rulz!) feel that their PDA de jour is the only possible choice for everyone else. Kids strive for status in the strangest ways.

There are just not enough adults here to wedge a foot up the poor excuse for a brain center, so the adults can *discuss* without their whiney rants.